Facing young defenseman Ryan Murray and the Blue Jackets would be the best match for the Bruins.

By Dan CagenDaily News staff

April 11, 2014
2:47 p.m.

Let's not worry too much about the lackadaisical efforts on this week's road trip through Minnesota and Winnipeg. The Bruins have known for a long time that the games will really start mattering sometime around 7:08 p.m. next Thursday, when they drop the puck on Game 1, Round 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

A team in the Bruins' position doesn't need to worry a ton about who the team on the visiting bench will be for that game. A king does not concern himself with the court jesters.

Claude Julien's team has established itself as the Stanley Cup favorite. They have experience, goaltending, three scoring lines, the best shutdown defenseman in the league, a good power play. There is more curiosity than concern in the Boston dressing room regarding the identity of the first-round opponent.

That first-round mystery to down to three teams — the Flyers, Blue Jackets and Red Wings. The new playoff format is confusing, but essentially the Bruins will face the team that finishes third in that group. They're all tied right now at 91 points with two games remaining.

Based on Sports Club Stats, there's a 52 percent chance the Bruins will face Detroit, 26 percent Columbus and 22 percent Philadelphia.

The Red Wings would be the scariest of the three.

Detroit is the only team to beat the Bruins three times in regulation this season. The Wings play a possession-based style that can hamper the Bruins' own possession game, and have the speed to burst past the Bruins' giants.

The Wings are in the playoffs for the 23rd straight year. Nobody in that room is scared of the Bruins. After sneaking into the West playoffs last year, Detroit knocked out No. 2 Anaheim and were up 3-1 on Chicago in the second round. Playing the Big, Bad Bruins won't intimidate them.

And the Wings pushed their way into the postseason largely without their stars. Pavel Datsyuk missed all of March, but has played the last four games and coach Mike Babcock issued what amounted to a warning when he said of Datsyuk, “He looks to me like he's getting ready to break through.”

Add in that ex-University of Maine star Gustav Nyquist has already broken through (14 goals and nine assists in 22 games since the Olympics) and goalie Jimmy Howard (another former Black Bear) has plenty of playoff experience, and the Wings are a dangerous Octupus.

The Flyers have played the Bruins tough twice in the last two weeks. Philadelphia deserved a better fate than a shootout loss in the March 30 game at the Wells Fargo Center, and were tied for 54 minutes last weekend on Causeway Street before the Bruins pulled away.

Claude Giroux might be the best player in the Eastern Conference not named Sidney Crosby. He has 76 points in 67 games since Nov. 5. Even if being placed on Zdeno Chara’s watch list diminishes Giroux, Philadelphia still has enough scoring to score. The Flyers have seven 20-goal scorers, and Vincent Lecavalier has played some games recently on the fourth line.

Yet the Flyers are weaker on the back end. They have a glut of defensemen, but no shutdown ones. David Krejci's line has eaten up the Flyers this season — Jarome Iginla and temporary first-liner Loui Eriksson both had four-point games against Philadelphia. Goalie Steve Mason has never won a playoff game.

The intriguing thing about the Flyers is the inbred emotion in Boston-Philadelphia. Even having not played in the last two postseasons, there's still a rivalry. Andrew Ference liked to say that the first round of the playoffs was the hardest because it was difficult to adjust emotionally to the heat of the postseason; drawing the Flyers could eliminate that.

That leaves the Blue Jackets as the club that factors best into the Bruins' plans. The announced loss of ex-Bruin playoff hero Nathan Horton for six weeks to abdominal surgery only made Peter Chiarelli salivate a little more at the sight of the Ohioans.

Columbus has a young roster. Key cogs Ryan Johansen, Cam Atkinson, Boone Jenner, Matt Calvert, Ryan Murray, Nikita Nikitin and Dalton Prout will play their first playoff games next week. Jared Boll is a playoff veteran with one game under his belt.

Reigning Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky is a concern, but he hasn’t been as good this season and got blown up in his playoff appearances with Philadelphia.

Style of play also should help the Bruins. The Jackets want to play a heavy style. The Bruins do too, they just do it better. Boston can chew up the teams that want to play physical and spit them out in four or five games, like the Rangers a year ago.

The Jackets have gotten this far largely without Horton, but in a weak East, they’re the lowest on the totem pole.

Not that the Bruins are concerned about any of this. At 16-2-4 since the Olympics, they've beaten all measures of teams. They're confident they can handle anyone four times in seven games.